1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a network system for transferring messages and various types of information among application programs or objects in a plurality of nodes, a network control method for controlling the network system, and a signal sender/receiver connected to the network system.
2. Prior Art
A conventional network system can transfer messages and various types of information among application programs or objects (referred to as a process hereafter for a broader term including all of these) in a plurality of nodes. For example, such a network uses the following method to determine a server or a server process. A process having capabilities that can provide a server attempts to find a server currently available on the network using a simple broadcast that specifies no destinations in the network. When not finding an available server, that process itself becomes a server.
Accordingly, when a process (called a client process) other than servers on the network performs some processing, the client process first finds a server process on the network using the above-mentioned broadcast. That client process sends a request to the server process to perform necessary processing.
Determination of a server process using the above-mentioned simple broadcast is frequently applied, for example, when power is turned on for a node on the network, when a node is newly connected to the network, or when a node on the network enters a processing instruction.